“Was I good?” Griffin demands again as we pile into the car. At first, I think he’s asking Devon, but then I realize he’s looking at me, eyes wide and nervously inquisitive, his hands twisting together in his lap. “Wanda, was I good?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
The doors slam shut, and we pull away into traffic.
“You guess? Was something wrong?” There’s a note of panic in his voice that I hadn’t expected. “What was wrong?”
“Well, I don’t know where the music came from, is all.”
“Oh.” Griffin yawns again, this time for so long that it makes me as well. Did he sleep last night, after we drank? I don’t remember him lying beside me, so maybe he didn’t. “It came from me, of course.”
“Can you elaborate on that a little? I never saw anyone playing any instruments.”
Griffin stares at me as if I’m completely bonkers, and then glances at one of the bodyguards. “I’m hungry,” he says in the imperious tone he’d used when we first met. “Stop somewhere and let’s get some food.” He then switches to his native language and talks quietly into Devon’s ear, all nervous hand gestures and furrowed brows. I turn my attention to my phone, which now registers eight missed calls from my mother. Not good.
It isn’t until the car lurches to a stop at the curb that I realize where we are. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute, guys!” I say. “Hey, we can’t stop here. We need to keep going.”
Griffin pulls away from Devon long enough to raise an eyebrow at me. “Why?”
“Because I work just one block down! If my boss sees me, he’s going to kill me. He already does everything in his power to make my life miserable as it is, and I really don’t want to give him any more ammunition.”
“Are you saying this man mistreats you?”
I laugh, the sound bitter. “Hmmm, makes fat jokes about me in front of customers, throws plates at my feet when he’s mad, and calls me unrepeatable names? Sexual harassment? That kind of thing? I guess you could call that mistreatment. It’s pretty bad when the customers in a Manhattan restaurant are actually nicer than the person you work for.”
Griffin slides out of the vehicle. Several of his bodyguards leap after him, shuffling around and glancing in every direction as if they expect someone to pick him off from a sniper post. “Where is this man?” he asks, poking his head back into the car to look at me.
“Uhh… well, over there, the red awning. But we’re going to—wait, what are you doing?” I demand as he turns on his heel and marches off toward the restaurant I’ve worked at since arriving in New York City. “Get back here, Griffin! Do not go in there!”
“I’m hungry,” he says, without bothering to slow down. “So we’re going to get something to eat.”
“What part of my boss is going to kill me did you not understand?” I chase him, but his jaw is set and his head held high. I consider tackling him but that would lead to one or both of us getting run over by taxis, and I really don’t want to get run over by taxis.
“Your employer will find it difficult to harm you with six of my father’s best bodyguards standing by.” He reaches the door and tugs it open. “And impossible, with me there.”
As usual, the TVs blare inside the restaurant, and music loops over top of that. The restaurant stinks like burned oil and old trash, a combination I’ve never quite been able to grow accustomed to. It’s a greasy oasis in a city of excess; an establishment that the educated know provides cheap food in an environment entirely opposite of posh.
Griffin stops just in front of the host stand, which is covered this evening by Anna, one of my pleasant but very lazy coworkers. She glances up at us, then back down at her phone, and then back up at us again, her mouth falling open.
“Oh my God. Daisy. Daisy! Where the hell have you been? Jimmy’s freaking out. Last night, we were way understaffed, and he’s pissed. I’ve never seen him this pissed,” she says, and then shoots a glance at all the bodyguards who have crowded in behind Griffin. “Are we getting audited?”
“Tell him that something happened to me,” I say to Anna, grabbing for Griffin’s arm. “Let’s go. We can eat somewhere else.” Any second now, Jimmy might appear, and the scene he’ll cause will be too legendary for me to live down. Or survive, maybe.
Just as I think we might be able to make a clean escape, Jimmy busts out of the back. Judging by the fire in his eyes, he already knows I’m here. He makes a beeline for me, his stiff, skinny frame moving altogether too fast and his chewed-gum face pressed into a hateful expression.
“Do you know what happened last night?” he says before he’s even reached me. A customer pushes by a couple of Griffin’s bodyguards and bumps into me, attempting to get into the restaurant, but even this brave person stops when he sees my boss.
“A-Anna just mentioned that you were understaffed,” I say, my voice automatically turning back into the pathetic, shaky, nervous mess it always turns into when I’m faced with Jimmy.
“Understaffed? Is that what she told you? Did she mention we were slammed and that Gary’s out with a bad kidney? He’s in the hospital, Kirkwood, but even he had the decency to call out. But you just take your fat ass and disappear on me for two days, and then you have the nerve to show back up here? What do you want, your check?”
Several people in the restaurant stop what they’re doing to turn and stare, so Jimmy lowers his voice.
“I told you the day I hired you that this is a busy restaurant in a busy city, and I don’t put up with whiny little bitches who want the day off so they can play with their friends in Central Park or audition for plays.” He shakes his head. “My God. You tell me, ‘I don’t have a life, I don’t have a life’, and then you screw off just when we need you most. I hope you get AIDs.”
This is actually one of his better speeches, in comparison to the one he gave my coworker, Laura, when she burned her hand so badly that she had to miss work for five days. But watching someone else get railed on this way is one thing, and getting yelled at in the backroom is another, but standing in front of a bunch of strangers while your evil, misogynistic, abusive boss says awful things to you is something else entirely. I struggle to think of something to say.
I was abducted by aliens. Everyone should get a free pass when they’re abducted by aliens.
Jimmy turns his laser-eyed gaze on Griffin. “Are you waiting for a table?” He motions at Anna, who’s been standing by the whole time in silent horror. “Do your job and get these people to a table.”
“Wanda,” Griffin says. “Do you have anything you want to say to this man?”
Once again, I try to say something, but anxiety has emptied my mind of coherent words and pressed embarrassed tears into the corners of my eyes. I turn to leave, but Griffin reaches out and catches my hand with a surprisingly strong grip.
“No. No, I don’t have anything to say to him.”
“What would you like him to say to you?” Griffin asks, his eyes still fixed on Jimmy.
I shake my head, wanting nothing more than to just run away. Maybe I’ll move back home, at this point. Or I’ll tell Devon and Griffin to take me with them back to their planet, where I’ll wear a scarf or bag over my head at all times and never speak to anyone again.
“Maybe you, Jimmy, should start by apologizing,” Griffin says in a flat tone. The TVs switch off and the music stops playing overhead. The lights flicker once, twice.
Jimmy stands up straighter, as if he’s been shocked. His eyes widen a little and his lips move soundlessly for a few seconds, until he finally looks over at Anna. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a disrespectful asshole. And I’m sorry I’ve been taking money out of your tips to pay for my rent and cocaine habit.”
What?
Anna stares at him. She’s said many times that she thought he was taking money from her tips, which was part of the reason she asked to work at the host stand. He’s always denied it, of course, and threatened to fire her if she brought it up again.
&nbs
p; Jimmy turns around and waves one of his hands in a strange, limp-wristed manner, as if he’s a puppet being pulled around by invisible strings. “Everyone, may I have your attention, please?” he says. “My name is James Alan Priestley. I like to degrade my employees to make myself feel better about how ugly and pathetic I am. I frequently threaten my female employees with employment termination if they don’t allow me to ogle them, call them names, and make sexual passes at them. I skim off the top of their pay, and I’ve cheated on my taxes for six years in a row. I have an illegitimate daughter that I pretend isn’t mine, even though I know she is. I haven’t seen her in two years, though, since I hit her mother for calling me a name.”
The customer who had earlier tried to push past me turns and walks back out the door. Everyone else, even the elderly couple in the back corner, has turned to see what’s going on.
But Jimmy’s not done. He spins around, looking at me. “Daisy, I’ve called you names and made jokes about your ass, but it’s actually because I find you very attractive and you won’t give me the time of day. The only way to make myself feel better about that is to make you feel worthless, and I’ve always secretly hoped that one day I’ll bully you into letting me fulfill my sick fantasy on you, right back there in my office.”
My face feels like it’s on fire, but I can’t help feeling a little justified in my silent fears about his intentions.
“To apologize for my terrible behavior, no one will have to pay for their meals tonight. I vow to never say another disrespectful thing to my employees and never steal from them again. For now, I’m going to go sit in my office and think about what an awful bastard I’ve been.” With that, Jimmy walks away.
A lot of people stand up and leave the restaurant, but Anna just stands frozen at the host station for a while before finally looking at me.
“Do you know what just happened…?”
I shake my head as Griffin shudders and the TVs switch back on.
“No idea! No idea at all,” I say.
Devon steps forward then. “Anna, might you please give us a table? We’re quite hungry,” he says, and Anna jumps right to it. I’ve never seen her with so much spring in her step as she leads us to a booth table and lays out our menus.
“I dunno what you did, Daisy, but that was incredible!” she hisses, prancing off to talk to some of our astonished coworkers.
I slide into one side of the booth, and Griffin and Devon slip into the other side. Griffin is still snickering, though his delight is now tempered with aching yawns. “Thank you,” I say, though some part of me is afraid I’ll wake up in bed, in my apartment, and all of this will have been the strangest dream ever. “How did you do that?”
Griffin peers across the table at me, incredibly amused with himself. “I just found all of his ugly secrets and made him feel like sharing them with the world,” he says, which sets off a fit of smug, quiet laughter. He pokes Devon in the side, but Devon only smiles.
“You need to eat, Griff.”
“Yes, something nutritionally bankrupt, strange, and delicious, please!” Griffin says. “Wanda, what should I eat?”
“Uhhhh…” I turn my head down to the menu, looking at it with fresh eyes. Serving subpar food is different from eating it with visitors from another planet, and my mind is distracted by the events of the last few moments. Finally, after senselessly staring at the menu for what feels like forever, I notice the burgers. “Our burgers are pretty good, I guess. It’s a really American thing to eat. Well, I guess it’s a very human thing to eat.”
“Good, good, that sounds good. And here’s our waitress.”
The aforementioned waitress is a Brooklyn girl named Phoebe. Jimmy likes to poke fun at her for being too skinny. After Phoebe expresses her hearty enthusiasm for what just happened with Jimmy, she takes a better look at the bodyguards who are awkwardly standing around our booth, and then at each of us sitting at the table. “Wait, are you Griffin Valentino?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Oh my God. This day just keeps getting weirder.” She clears her throat. “Sorry! Sorry. We just don’t get a lot of famous people in here. They tend to avoid us like the plague.” She wields her notepad and pen. “What would you like to eat, Mr. Valentino?”
“I’ll have whatever Wanda suggests,” Griffin says, motioning at me.
“Wanda? Your name is Wanda? I thought your name was Daisy.”
“My name is Daisy, but my uh, my professional name is Wanda,” I say, because at this point, I can’t really argue any longer. “We’ll all take a house burger each. Load one of them with everything on it. Griffin’s really hungry.” I glance across the table at Devon, who gives me a grateful nod in response. “Is there any way you could make them on the fly?”
“Sure, sure. Be back soon!”
When I turn my attention back to Griffin, he’s lying on his side on the booth seat.
“Is he asleep?” I ask, and Devon nods. “He’s been yawning a lot today. Did he stay up all night last night?”
“No. He slept in my room—like a rock, to be exact.” Judging by the bodyguards’ body language and Dev’s nervous manner, something is going on. “He’s used too much,” Devon says quietly, as if he knows what I’m thinking. “Way too much, and he’s exhausted himself. I hope he’s not used it up entirely.” Devon motions for one of the bodyguards to lean down, and he whispers something to him, before looking at me again. “As soon as we eat, he needs to go back to the hotel and rest. Once he’s rested, he’ll be fine, but he’s… he’s got to stop before he runs out.”
“Runs out of what?”
Devon sighs, giving me a pointed look.
“Of his finger-snapping power, you mean?”
“We can only do so much of that without recharging. It’s not infinite.”
“Oh. Well… will sleeping recharge him?”
“Home recharges us. Resting will just make him feel alright again; it won’t give him back his abilities. Until he’s home, he’ll have to be more careful, and he won’t want to admit that.” Dev sighs again. “Griff lost our home stone, which renews his energy, just after we landed, so we don’t even have that. We only brought one, since I don’t have sensitivities and don’t really need one. He doesn’t like to… well, anyway.”
“No more finger-snapping,” I whisper, wondering if they’re in more danger than I’d anticipated. Somehow, I’d begun to count on Griffin’s magical ability to make things happen whenever he wanted them to. “What about you? You said you don’t lean toward that stuff, but can you do it at all? If you needed to?”
Devon shakes his head and doesn’t say anything again until Phoebe arrives with our meal. The noise of clattering plates or the smell of food must rouse Griffin, because he sits up and rubs his eyes with the heel of one of his hands, yawning.
“Ah, sorry, I’m tired from my wonderful musical performance,” he says, dropping his gaze to his oversized burger. “What’s this?”
“Just eat it,” Devon and I say at the same time.
Griffin watches how I pick up my burger and follows suit, taking a big bite and then thoughtfully chewing. “Hmm… this is good,” he says. “It has many tastes all at once.”
Devon nods. “We don’t have anything like this back home.”
“It’s big, isn’t it?” Griffin says.
“Yeah, massive.”
It looks like a standard burger to me, but then, my French friend once told me that American food portions looked big to him, so who knows what they look like to aliens.
We’re all munching away, and I’ve just remembered that maybe I should offer the bodyguards something to eat, when someone turns the sound volume on the restaurant’s main television set up. Up, up, way up—loud enough to hear the jingle for breaking news—and then something about odd phenomena in the sky, a purple, yellow, and red streak of light that scientists can’t explain.
“Wait, what was that?” Devon asks, dropping his half-eaten burger to his plate. He stands
up from the booth and Griffin follows him, both of them drawing closer to the TV, huddling close against each other. After a few seconds of hesitation, I join the small crowd that’s gathered around.
“This footage was captured by a London student, just three hours ago,” the reporter says, and then the screen flashes to something that looks eerily like ripples emanating downward from a bruise in the sky.
“Looks like a lava lamp,” someone says.
“Or maybe it’s aliens,” someone else suggests, and everyone laughs.
I wonder if Griffin’s dad has popped by for a visit to check up on him. Oh! Or maybe the evil future wife has scheduled a date. How awkward would that be? I can’t even imagine.
“You guys expecting some visitors?” I ask Griffin quietly, in a lighthearted tone. “Or did you order something through the mail and they’re special-delivering it?”
When Devon and Griffin turn to look at me, I know something’s wrong. Very, very wrong.
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